VW’s latest Plug-in hybrid, the Passat GTE, can do without internal combustion for 50 km and has a max range of 1,001 km.
The 2015 Passat GTE in it’s two avatars.
This week saw Volkswagen revealing their brand-new Plug-in hybrid car, the Passat GTE ahead of it’s public debut at the Paris Motor Show 2014. This intelligent, yet unassuming car is capable of trundling 50 km on battery power, alone. The electric-house is helped by a 1.4-litre turbocharged direct-injection petrol engine to give the GTE a combined maximum range of 1,001 km!
This is VW’s third plug-in hybrid car (first was the limited volume XL1, and then the Golf GTE) and is based on the 8th-gen Passat. It will be offered as a sedan and a estate version for international markets in 2015.
Proudly donning the badge.
The Passat GTE shares the same modular petrol-electric hybrid system with it’s Golf GTE sibling and hence, is front-wheel drive. The 1.4-litre petrol engine and the electric motor (which is powered by a 9.9kWh lithium ion battery) together generate a healthy 215 bhp and an impressive 400 Nm of torque. This battery set is larger than the one found on the Golf GTE and can be charged, either by the car’s petrol engine, or by plugging it into a 240-volt socket which will take 4 hrs or so to fully charge.
The “magic port” on the Passat GTE.
Similar to the Golf GTE, this car comes with four different driving modes; namely, E-mode, Hybrid, Battery Charge and GTE. In E-mode, the Passat can cover 50 km on batteries alone and has a limited top speed of 130 km/h. In the exciting performance GTE mode, this car uses all of it’s resources to propel you to a top-whack of 222 km/h and can hit the 100 km/h mark in under eight seconds.
The crux of the matter.
You can, at all times monitor what the engine and the electric motor are up to by gazing at the 6.5-inch colour display. It comes with features such as a Range Monitor, e-Manager, Energy Flow Indicator etc. Along with the navigation system, the 360-Degree Range system can calculate one-way electric driving range over a prescribed route. The GTE is differentiated from the standard Passat by blue accents inside the grille, a unique design front bumper with low mounted C-shaped DRLs, a different design 17-inch alloy wheels and the GTE decals help too.
Clearly a green car.